The people most likely to answer when you call in an emergency are everyday people.

Unless they happen to appear in the news, it is strictly in voice only. Occasionally, movies depict their feats, but you will likely never meet an emergency dispatcher, more commonly thought of as a 911 operator.

At the Oakland County Sheriff's Office in Pontiac, more than 50 trained and certified dispatch specialists take calls from a wide-ranging field -- nearly one-third of the county's municipalities -- which necessitates the state's second-largest 911 center. It handled more than 250,000 calls for service last year.

In a dimly lit, spacious room where the clocks are set to military time, more than a dozen dispatchers and radio operators await calls of all nature, quickly creating or updating an existing call log or routing calls to their proper destination. The room is divided between call-takers and call-senders -- radio operators who communicate information to the first-responders. The default call center for the entire county, they collectively respond to every type of call imaginable, and their job is to stay calm throughout.

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"If they get lost in the moment, they're not going to be able to help anyone," said Mel Maier, chief of Emergency Management Operations.

After the most heinous or surprising crimes, 911 calls are sometimes distributed or broadcast by the media. The subtlety of the operator on the line likely goes unnoticed, but that poise surely helped to find a resolution.

Calmness is especially timely when an operator is needed to dispense immediate medical advice, such as how to deliver a baby or assist when someone stops breathing. There are protocols for many types of medical emergencies, which dispatchers are equipped to advise with the aid of sophisticated computer software.

Today's tools are a vast upgrade from the "logistically challenging" technology in place for dispatchers when Sheriff Michael Bouchard began his career in law enforcement. The amount of data call-takers process is also greatly accelerated, he said, now nearly 30 years into the field.

"The amount of info they collect and disseminate is much more involved," Bouchard said.

Emergencies tend to run counter to the 9-to-5 schedule that dictates much of the workforce, with weekends seeing more calls to dispatch.

There's more than one might expect to be provided when dialing three simple numbers.

Not every call is an emergency

Although 77 percent of the calls received are 911 calls, there can be some misguided notions for what constitutes an "emergency."

One may think the false alarm calls are coming from children experimenting with a phone or even the good, old-fashioned pocket dial, but the most frustrating calls come from adults, dispatchers said.

"We get some non-911 calls that make you say 'Wow,' " said shift manager Jaime Seling, who has been with the Sheriff's Office dispatch unit for more than a decade. "If there's something actually happening, that's a 911 call."

Grown ups can also perpetuate unintended calls by letting children play with a cell phone. Even the most ordinary and otherwise disregarded phone in the junk drawer is capable of dialing 911.

"That's rough," Seling said. "We tell parents to be careful."

That advice requires returning the call to the parent, and actually getting a response, if the phone is still in service or even a visit to the home if the call comes from a landline.

There are Good Samaritans, though, helping law enforcement. An estimated 60 to 70 callers have called to report the same situation in the past. Recently, the Sheriff's Office dispatch center handled the overflow calls after the gas line explosion in Royal Oak, which destroyed a home and killed a man.

Some helpful citizens call in suspected drunken drivers. Those calls have, at times, also led deputies to a driver who has suffered a medical emergency, not a DUI candidate.

Advances in technology have also benefited emergency responders. Wireless companies are obligated to transfer information about calls made from cell phones -- which most people now use more than landlines. GPS capabilities also make cell phones easier to track in case of emergency.

Virtual Private Network phone lines such as Vonage can occasionally present issues with emergency calls, but typically they function as needed.

In addition to the calls from residents, dispatchers also receive calls from security firms verifying or canceling alarms at homes and businesses.

A different language

As a public safety entity, the dispatch center is filled with "10-4s" and other police lingo. Other non-verbal clues are needed to assist dispatchers through their everyday call load.

"The first thing you learn is border streets," Seling said. "Everyone knows their mailing address, but not everyone knows where they live.

"Haggerty and 14 Mile Road could be four different cities."

Because the Sheriff's Office doesn't contract services for every jurisdiction, a handy color-coded map circulates in the dispatch room, reminding operators of their obligations for quickly rerouting calls to particular community's police and fire departments.

Their reputation for cost savings, state-of-the-art equipment and skilled personnel precede them, Bouchard said. Recently, the Village of Holly began considering outsourcing a portion of its daily calls to the Sheriff's Office. When OCSO assumed policing for the city of Pontiac, it added an additional 80,000 911 calls annually, by Maier's estimate, which represents slightly less than one-third of all emergency calls to Central Dispatch.

"Pontiac is a great success story," Maier said. "We're very proud of the work we're doing in Pontiac."

To help relay the calls to deputies on the street, the Sheriff's Office added the Open Sky radio system in 2010, allowing its operators to communicate with about 1,500 first-response personnel and other county dispatch centers.

Operating a multi-monitor setup like their office neighbors who take calls, radio operators can run their post while standing, while others opt to sit. From their perch, they issue calls to patrol units while making an effort not to overlap existing calls. All the while, the police lingo, abbreviations and codes alike, fill the airwaves.

The right person for the job

Like any high-pressure position, not everyone is cut out for the rigors of emergency dispatch. A training exercise with monitored call-handling can be enough to eliminate some candidates.

"We have a lot of people who don't make it through," said Lauren Hermann, who spent six years as an emergency medical technician before joining dispatch. "Some people just aren't cut out for it."

Hermann said being at the desk is much different than being on the scene.

"It's hard here because they're on the other end of the phone," she said, adding there is a certain amount of follow-up dispatchers can do to ascertain how a particular call was later resolved.

After strapping on the phone headset, operators must be vigilant to ensure they are properly interpreting the nature of each call. It's a high-stakes game of "Telephone" trying to quickly determine why someone is calling.

"Every call is different," said Veronica Tovar, an emergency dispatcher for 11 years who transferred to the Sheriff's Office when it assumed policing duties for the city of Pontiac just more than two years ago. "You expect when you pick up the phone it could be anything."

Maier, who has worked in dispatch for nearly 20 years, the last four with the Sheriff's Office, said he looks for problem-solvers when hiring for the job. He estimates one-third of dispatch trainees don't complete their six months of training.

"You don't want to be robotic," he said. "It bothers us, but in that moment, you have to be a professional.

"Sometimes, no amount of training can prepare you."

Sheriff's Office dispatchers facilitate more than emergency calls, processing calls for any of their substations in between a possible life-and-death situation. Maier said the balancing act between emergencies and sometimes trivial matters can result in "customer service fatigue."

"There's always the call you never expect," Hermann said.

Not everyone can be saved

Hearing the stories as they unfold can leave scars those on the other end of the line. A bad memory of an unresolved emergency can haunt. Seling was able to quickly bring a pair of situations to mind.

"The ones that stick are the ones that hit me personally," she said.

There was the story of a little girl who called because her father fell from a tree during her birthday party or the suicidal man saying goodbye.

"Tell them I'm sorry," Seling recalled him saying.

Helplessness can be the hardest part, she said, adding that past experience in dispatch helps the operators keep collected under the pressure.

With instantaneous action needed with emergency calls, the high pressure can lead to high stress levels.

"It's more stress than a normal job," Hermann said. "Choices we make affect the outcome."